A Guide To Dealing With Fate
by atrocitous
Summary: It was inevitable that Roxas would love Axel. It was also inevitable that Axel would slip through his hands like elusive sand. Axel/Roxas. Yaoi. Don't like, don't read. Reviews are very welcome.


Disclaimer: Hah.

Roxas watched as Axel crossed the street. He was wearing the same slightly torn up red shirt that he said he'd throw out but always retrieved at the last minute—which was what Roxas loved about him. The shirt was barely able to hold itself up on his svelte frame, but Axel just never seemed to care. The redhead had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his dark faded jeans; head lowered to prevent his eyes being blinded by the sun as he finally reached the restaurant Roxas was sitting in.

This was it. It was now or never.

Axel had made his way over to Roxas' table and sat down across from the blond. Emerald met sapphire, each waiting for the other to speak first. The usual cocky grin was absent today, replaced with a sort of resigned look that was two parts apathy and one part regret. Roxas idly wondered what was wrong.

Wordlessly, Axel pulled out a sheet of paper and passed it face down towards Roxas. The blond glanced up questioningly, but picked it up and flipped it over. A notice from the hospital.

_Brain cancer._

Axel didn't say anything and neither did Roxas until he finally set the paper down. Roxas' first purpose for coming here was to inform Axel that the redhead had been a good friend to him, and that he just couldn't possibly live on with his life because really, he didn't know where his heart was.

Actually, no, he did have a heart.

He just didn't have a soul.

Vaguely, Roxas recalled the time he visited one of those psychics. The ones who looked at you, asked you a bunch of questions, and could just miraculously tell you what happened in your past life.

The lady said he was a black cloaked fool who ran around looking for a soul, and then died.

But how could he possibly say that after seeing that god forsaken sheet of paper? In the back of his mind, a tinny mechanical voice whispered,

_"...Asshole. What were you going to say to him before you got to the dying part?"_

And with a straight face, Roxas looked right into twin pools of distant emerald. He picked up the sheet of paper and ripped it in half, then in quarters, and then crushed it.

"I love you." A pause. That grin slowly returned to Axel's lips.

"You told me that already, kid." A smile tugged a corner of Roxas' mouth,

"I did?"

"Yeah. You were sleep talking the last time you slept over."

"...Ugh." Roxas allowed his head to fall on the table in a rare display of shame. Axel merely laughed, and Roxas knew then that Axel wasn't abandoning him the last few months, that he wasn't trying to be distant on purpose, and that the stupid pyromaniac felt the same.

- - -

"You didn't invite me to lunch that day just to see me, right?" Axel stood on a stool, reaching up to change the burnt out light bulb. Roxas looked up from the piece of waffle he was eating,

"No. I was going to tell you that I was going to kill myself before we got to go to China." Axel threw the old light bulb into the trashcan before screwing in the new one,

"It wasn't there, was it?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Told you so."

"Shut up, idiot." Axel smiled to himself and sat on the stool, scrutinizing Roxas in a way he always did when he watched wood burning in a fireplace. Roxas immediately remembered a time a year after he became friends with Axel, standing on the roof of Roxas' building. Axel had told him they didn't have souls. Roxas didn't believe him, until Axel asked him why he was standing on the roof with him.

Roxas' wit decided to leave at that moment.

"We're still going to China."

"How about tomorrow?"

"What? You plan these things and you don't tell me?" Axel jumped up from his stool and ran into his room to pack, "Roxas, communication is key in this relationship!"

"Well, you said we had a fucked up relationship."

- - -

For the next five months, Roxas showed more feeling and care than he ever did in the past twenty years of his life. Axel was probably getting worse, but they didn't care.

"Roxas, you can't say that Lincoln Rhyme is a stupid git in a wheelchair." Roxas had finished another chapter in _The Bone Collector _that Axel made him read aloud. The redhead may have been suffering from brain cancer, but he was fully capable of reading. He just liked it whenever Roxas frowned when something didn't happen the way he thought would, or when he thought the characters were being "out of character". And Roxas did _not_ pout when Sachs and Rhyme got into their little spats.

"The guy is a bitter prick who thinks he's been through every kind of hell there is on the face of Earth," Roxas ground out. "Do you see the way he acts in front of everyone?"

"Hey, if you couldn't move any part of your body besides a finger, you'd be bitter too." Roxas bit his inner cheek to stifle his oncoming laugh and Axel rolled his eyes,

"Fine, fine. Maybe you could read me _Romeo and Juliet _instead?" Roxas threw _The Bone Collector _at Axel.

- - -

"Hey, Roxas? Roxas? You still awake?" Roxas blearily rubbed his eyes and grumbled to himself for a moment.

"No, Axel. I read _Hamlet_ to you yesterday and _A Midsummer Night's Dream _the week before. I'm not going to read anymore fucking Shakespeare plays to you." Axel sighed and turned over to look at the blond.

"Loving you made me happy everyday." Roxas paused and stared at Axel for a good minute. Viscous azure softened down to a clear blue as a tear slipped down his cheek.

"...Stupid pyromaniac." Axel grinned that lopsided grin that Roxas loved so much and pressed a tender kiss to Roxas' lips. The blond twined his arms around the redhead's neck, and a soft sound escaped the back of his throat when Axel shifted their positions. Axel's kisses were liquid fire that burned sweetly in the pit of his stomach; churning and incinerating him from the intense feelings that Axel poured out and always left him gasping for air.

Axel always kissed him as if it was their last kiss.

"I can't leave you if you're gonna be like this, Roxas," Axel murmured as he brushed endless tears from painfully beautiful eyes. Roxas shook his head fervently before lifting his hips and grinding them hard against Axel. He shuddered as a groan hissed past clenched teeth.

"I belong to you. I always did, and I always will." Emerald met glassy sapphire and finally Roxas felt something snap into place within him. A warmth spread throughout him at the same time Axel lowered his lips to his arousal, and Roxas realized that it was his soul. Axel was his soul. After years of telling himself that he was just some unfeeling humbug, someone up there decided they had had enough of his apathy and finally handed him his soul. Everything fell into place right then, and though it was inevitable that Axel was going to slip past his fingers like sand, Roxas couldn't have been more happier at that moment.

He was crying out a second later and a few moments after that, he was crying out for a whole different reason. "Relax, Roxas..." Axel murmured, pushing into the blond. Roxas clenched his teeth and soon after a few deep thrusts, he pushed up against Axel. The redhead moaned and changed the angle of his hips, hitting a spot in Roxas that made him arch his back off the mattress and let loose a long loud moan.

He murmured three words as he came and Axel merely kissed him in that lovingly perfect way that no words would have been able to replace.

- - -

When Axel died at the end of the year, Roxas developed an emotional coma and didn't recover. Surprisingly, he didn't go through with his plans of suicide because Sora still didn't give him permission to kill Riku for taking away his cousin's virginity. Alright, so maybe he didn't exactly want to kill Riku. Well, at least nothing more than a good punch in the gut.

But he could just hear Axel's voice, smirking and calling him stupid right at the last minute.

Before Axel died, Roxas was taking pottery classes as a sort of anger management. His last wish was for Roxas to make a vase. A vase painted with colors that were the closest thing to lava meeting the ocean. Two months later, Roxas held said vase and made his way to the cemetery where Axel was laid to rest. He paused as he spotted something red, but realized it wasn't Axel.

Even a year later, his heart still lurched every time he saw a man with flaming red hair wearing a slightly torn up red shirt with dark faded jeans...

_"It's my lucky shirt. Why the fuck are you making me throw away my lucky shirt?"_

_"Because it's a crappy piece of fabric that can hardly retain its shape anymore."_

_"But it's red."_

_"You can always get another red shirt, Axel."_

_"...I met you in this shirt, Roxas."_

--OWARI.

Koya's note: So, after not having posted anything for an extremely long time, I decided to give you folks this. I don't really know why I wrote this, but it just wouldn't get out of my head. I'm kinda glad I did coz I really had fun with this little puppy. 8D

By the way, I was listening to L'arcEnCiel's _Feeling Fine_ while typing this out. You should totally listen to it; it's fucking amazing. But ultimately, I was inspired by Anberlin's _Inevitable_, so you should listen to that as well. It really is an Axel/Roxas song, and it nearly made me cry the first time I heard it.

Just to let you know, this is technically the first lemon I've ever written in my entire life, so...uh...don't look too much into it, okay? D:

Finally, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed to the other stories I've written. Seriously, you don't know how happy I am when I read your reviews. Ergo, you reviewing to this one would also make me very happy as well...hint hint

Thanks so much and hopefully I'll be seeing you soon in my next story.


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